And...

Skela turned, eyes flicking to Adelaide in head-to-toe black. She sniffed the air like a wary fox, then her voice tripped in surprise.

“Lady Adelaide is here too… why?”

...

???

Adelaide glanced down at her black robe like a shadow checking itself. She tugged her headscarf, making sure it still veiled every strand of hair.

A chill pricked her—had the test spell stripped her disguise without her noticing? She checked. Everything sat perfect; not an inch of skin showed.

The fact turned shock into a stormy frustration across her face.

Was her disguise craft truly that bad? It shouldn’t be. She hid her hair, bound her chest, altered her voice with mimicry, and even wore the same black robe as that Blood Magic group to mislead.

Yet why did all three who saw her peg her as Adelaide at a glance, as if her veil were rice paper?

Adelaide couldn’t figure it out. Skela, after a brief think, brightened like a sunrise breaking cloud.

“Lady Adelaide came to help too? Great—then we can keep—”

“No. We’re going back now.”

Skela lifted her head and met Hazel’s serious eyes—clear lakes with steel under the surface.

“I’m fine already…”

“I’ve only suppressed the chaos toxin in you. Leave it, and you’ll pass out again soon.” Hazel drew her healing array back, then locked eyes with Adelaide. “Get us out. This toxin needs Sacred Stones to purify.”

Her voice was steady as rain; she reached to help Skela up. Mid-motion, Skela shoved her hand away like pushing aside a thorned branch.

“I said I’m fine!”

Skela flung Hazel’s hand aside. She glared; her eyes were sharp as hammered steel now.

“I have to find proof against Rockridge. I won’t leave before that.”

Hazel’s brow knit tight; her voice climbed two pitches, a hawk’s cry against a storm. “And then what? Was I unclear on Wednesday? You plan to accuse the regent of this country? The Inquisitorial Court stands with him. Who do you think will believe you?”

Wednesday—Adelaide remembered hearing them argue that day. Regret flickered like a passing shadow over Skela’s face, but she clenched her fist like a stone. Her voice was resolute.

“If you remember that day, you know my answer, Hazel!”

Their gazes clashed like blades. Hazel faltered first. Her lashes fell like shutters; she looked at Skela’s trembling fist—chaos toxin reactivating as her blood surged.

She stepped in, took Skela’s hand again. Her voice softened, a plea like light rain on dust.

“Don’t do this, Sanyi. None of this is your fault. You don’t have to carry this mountain.”

“I…”

Skela’s voice eased, then dropped to the ground like a leaf. She looked down and saw the Blood Puppets’ wreckage ringed around her—broken dolls on a crimson floor.

Their self-cycling arrays had been scrubbed away by holy light. What remained showed what they’d been before becoming these pitiful, hateful things—limbs, hair, and pairs of eyes…

Yes. They had been ordinary people, like her.

Skela bit her lip. When she lifted her face, resolve gleamed again like a drawn blade. She shook her head at Hazel.

“I’m the key to all this. I opened the abyss of Chaos. I have to end it myself.”

“Sanyi…”

Adelaide watched, cool wind in her chest. She didn’t know their exact bond, but threads of that day’s quarrel lay visible now, tangled and tight.

Troublesome little ones, she sighed inwardly, a reed-breath through a marsh. Best to send the wounded and the noncombatant back up. Solo would make exploration lighter.

She could grill Hazel about Mira later. As she set the plan and opened her mouth to suggest splitting ways, a prickling like needles ran across her back.

Bad premonition rose like dark surf. Mana in the air grew irritable, colliding and whispering like cloth rubbing in the dark.

She snapped her head toward Skela, a hawk’s turn.

“Where did the Blood Puppets come from just now?”

Skela blinked at Adelaide’s disguised voice, a snowflake’s pause, then answered.

“I ran into this room, then they poured out from the pipes and those small doors… She pointed that way, then froze. “Huh? The door—the door’s gone?”

Just as she said, the door they’d used had vanished, replaced by brick identical to the rest, a wall wearing a perfect mask.

When did the change happen? Why no clank of a mechanism? Did their shouting drown it?

Questions bubbled up, but one thing was certain—they were trapped, a net drawn tight.

Hazel and Skela clasped hands by reflex, eyes darting for exits like birds seeking gaps in a cage. Adelaide didn’t look at the vanished door. Her gaze fixed on the other side of the room—on an iron door that climbed almost to the ceiling, tall as dozens of people. Her eyes darkened like gathering thunder.

She’d noticed that iron slab earlier, out of place against brick, and had thought it a chute for the Blood Puppet horde.

If the puppets came through small passages, then who—or what—was this giant door for?

Then she heard the sound of velvet catching flame. One pop, then another, blooming in a chain. She scanned the walls; torches flared one by one, dark-red fire washing the underground like a blood tide.

In that moment, Adelaide remembered something from the “Dream”—a movie lodged in mist.

A vast arena, murky firelight, rough stone, blood and wreckage strewn like wilted petals.

This felt like a Roman coliseum.

You watch your chosen fighters hack each other here. You watch blood spray like crimson rain. You watch them drive swords into the chest of the friend who shared drinks last night, just to live.

To savor the fall—from a soul with dignity to a beast—is the sole purpose of places like this.

Adelaide’s face tightened. Under her black robe, fingers traced silent arcs, moonlight sketches; several arrays gathered power. She’d sensed the hidden “audience” watching from the dark.

“So quick to notice. Your intuition’s no joke, eldest daughter of the Douglas Family.”

Adelaide frowned. The voice was new to her, an unknown wind. Who?

Unlike Adelaide’s confusion, Skela went pale at once, color draining like wax from a candle. Hazel saw it; anger sparked across her face like flint.

“Get out here, Toka!” she roared into the dark, but the voice came from all sides, walls speaking like a cave.

Adelaide shook her head.

“A sound transmission array. The caster isn’t here.” She paused. “You know this man?”

“Oh, she knows me. Thanks to me, she got one more year with her mother—”

“Shut up, you bastard!”

Hazel’s face flushed scarlet with fury. Pale blue threads of mana spread like a rampage, wild vines in a storm. The other only sneered, a cold scrape.

“As for you, eldest of the Douglas Family, you don’t know me, but I know you. More than that, I saved your life.”

Saved me?

“You should explain, Mr. Toka. I don’t recall anything like that.”

“Of course you don’t. You were still dreaming then—a dream that lasted a full year.”

...

“Yes. Heart puncture with massive bleeding. Even on my record, that was a miracle of a surgery. And one of my regrets. I wanted to dissect your corpse. To open those delicate hands. To steep your lovely throat and vocal cords in solution. To see if the famed Blood Magic prodigy’s body was built different.”

He sighed, regret tasting like sweet wine.

“A pity. You actually lived that day.”

“Then I must apologize, Mr. Toka.” Adelaide laughed, a blade wrapped in silk. “Open this door now. I’ll come to you at once and deliver the overdue thanks—eight years late—by my own hand. How’s that?”

“No need. I’ve already received your gift.”

Toka’s voice trembled. Not only with excitement, but with something more direct—the ground shivered to his words, and the transmission array buzzed off-key, a lute string gone sour.

The source lay behind the giant iron door, a sleeping beast waking.

“Your presence here is the best return gift…”

Adelaide missed his last words. The tremor underfoot surged into shockwaves within seconds, a drumbeat turning into a battering ram. Unprepared, Hazel and Skela dropped hard to the floor. The wall arrays shattered into glittering fragments, a glass rain.

Something immense was coming. Adelaide felt it like a tide pressing in.

Bottles under her robe flared red. Her arrays fired together; brilliant attack spells streaked toward the iron door like comets. At the same time, high-pressure incantations poured from her mouth, and her hands wove a defense array.

It proved the right call. A blood-wall barely shielded Skela and Hazel. Before the spells reached the door, a mountain-splitting crash detonated.

The next heartbeat, the place they stood drowned in rubble, a stone wave swallowing light.